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What have I done for Radio?
2007
With ace producer John Byrne I recorded four new
Eureka years programmes, covering the years 1628, 1866, 1905, and
1965. Each of these years had one major event and a bunch of minor ones.
In 1628 William Harvey published his book on the circulation of the
blood. It’s a boring little brown book, and because the printer couldn’t
read his dreadful handwriting (well, he was a doctor), some bits of the
text don’t make sense. Nevertheless this book changed the way doctors
thought about how the body works.
1866 was a grand year for physics and engineering,
but we chose to focus on the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who in a
monastery at Brno grew thousands and thousands of peas, using such
characteristics as height, colour, and wrinkliness to work out the basic
science of genetics.
1905 was Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis.
In that year the young patent officer published two papers that changed
for ever the world of physics, for he introduced the ideas of relativity
and quantum mechanics.
Finally in 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
discovered that the faint hiss coming from their microwave antenna was
not caused by pigeons or even pigeon droppings, but was the echo of the
Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. This was also the time of the space
race, the cold war, and the Beatles.
All four of these programmes are now available on
CD from the BBC shop
http://www.bbcshop.com/invt/9781405677707 and the programmes
received at least one
favourable review!
In addition I presented various other programmes for
Radio 4. With Welsh producer Paul Evans I made The angelic organ of
evil, a fascinating half-hour about the glass armonica, an
instrument invented by the American Benjamin Franklin, whose tone was
said to drive people to madness. Then there was The archive hour –
back to the future, about the future predicted by Tomorrow’s
world which never happened, The personality test, and a
splendid programme about public lavatories.
And I have been interviewed on the Asian Network in
London, and on many local BBC stations, from West Midlands to Southern
Counties, usually to plug one of my books.
And in previous years................
Excess Baggage
I contributed to the BBC
Radio 4 programme,
Excess Baggage, in the programme 'The Steppes and Toilets around
the World'. Listen to my report on the work done by
Wateraid in cleaning up the
water supply and improving the disposal of toilet waste
With Great Pleasure
Stories about my life and favourite writing. Readers were Bill Wallis,
Jenny Coverack and John Telfer.
In Search of Mornington Crescent
I contributed to the Radio 4 programme 'In
Search of Mornington Crescent' which was broadcast on Christmas Eve
2005. Andrew Marr endeavoured to uncover the history and rules of
Mornington Crescent (the most popular and mysterious of British games)
with help from myself and others!
Loose Ends
On New Years Eve 2005 I was a guest on the Radio 4 programme 'Loose
Ends'. In 2006 I made
another appearance, this time plugging my book,
Just Another Day
 Engineering Solutions
For Radio 4, I explored five present-day engineering marvels: Heathrow's
Terminal 5, Scroby Sands offshore wind farms, the Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower,
the Eurostar Tunnel, and the new Usk bridge at Newport.
Oliver Burkeman describes the series in his
Guardian
review:
"Engineering Solutions invited its audience to "explore some of the
most ambitious civil engineering projects currently under construction in
the UK". To which much of its potential audience presumably responded: "Is
that the time? Now I really am going to be late for work ..." That would have been an unfortunate reaction, because Engineering
Solutions is brilliant."
And Chris Campling writes in the Guardian Choice section:
"I don't so much admire Adam
for what he has done to popularise science, but rather for the fact that
my 9-year old daughter never misses his programmes. He is one
of the great communicators of our age, and if he could just expand his
range to encompass middle-school maths, say, there is a fiver for him
any time. Here, he unleashes his boundless enthusiasm on the
engineering feats of today and tomorrow. He starts by meeting Alan
Myers, contract manager on the Channel Tunnel, who is presently bringing
his tunnel vision to bear on London. You might have the thought the
capital was tunnelled out by now, but no."
In 2006 I presented Engineering Solutions again for Radio 4, this time
from five different countries: high-rise office blocks in London, the
vast LNG project at Milford Haven in Wales, the lovely new sewers of
Belfast, the Airbus A380 in Toulouse, and the Glendoe hydroelectric
scheme on a glorious mountain above Loch Ness.
Inspiration!
I was a regular team leader (against Lewis Wolpert) in the panel game
Inspiration!
 Taking the P*** out of London
John Byrne and
I were awarded the
Association of
British Science Writers award for best communication of
science in a non-science context for our
BBC Radio 4 programme in
2003 called 'Taking the Piss out of London'. I charted the
many uses of human urine through history, exploring how the Romans
used it both to harden leather and to whiten their teeth, and discovering
why thousands of gallons of urine were shipped from London to fuel the alum
industry on the North Yorkshire coast in the 18th century. Then John, the producer, cast about for
something even more tasteless - and what he came up with was:
Flogging A Dead Horse, which catalogued the extraordinary range of
uses of ex-horses, from horsehair sofas to the leather of German
cavalry officers' trousers, and the cannon-bones used as ice skates.
This was transmitted in November 2004. Goodness knows what he'll come
up with next!
Inventors
Imperfect
For Radio 4, I contributed to the science quiz show Inspiration! I have
also presented several series of
Inventors Imperfect, which covered the lives and work of
British mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and inventors.
These programmes were produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and John Byrne, and broadcast on
Radio 4 in September 2002.
High Resolution
Comprised six eclectic programmes, about foam, zero, navigation,
the Eddystone Lighthouse, aspirin, and cold-survival. They were
broadcast in early 2001 and produced by Louise Dalziel.
Elements of Surprise
Also produced by Louise Dalziel, with one
programme each on oxygen, carbon, nickel and mercury. These were
broadcast in the summer of
2001.
Reinventing the Wheel
Produced by John Byrne, covered the potter’s
wheel, the water-wheel, the Ferris wheel, and the spinning wheel.
These were broadcast late in
2001.
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